13th September -Guest writer Barry Phillips

Staff are hard at work this week as we head firmly into our next season of events. It's brochures mailshots brochures time again.

Scott is meeting John Hogg of Enlighten on Tuesday and will then attend a Chamber of Commerce dinner on building links between the public and private sectors.

Jayne is busy preparing to submit the company application for ur European Quality Mark which has to be in on Friday.

I'm busy wading through hundreds of emails as I recover from a two week break. I'm off to London tomorrow to deliver a presentations skills seminar and then I'm busy all week with internal meetings and putting some final shape to our strategic plan.

As always busy times ahead!

6th September: Guest Writer Jacqui

These are exciting times for us here on the Island as we have 4 new Annual Review Conferences taking place in England over October and November, to find out more, go to http://www.legal-island-events.com/. This may well be a "baptism of fire" for our new Administrator, Bronagh, who comes to us with 20 years of experience.



We have Sharon Simpson coming on board today as Housekeeper for our Training suite and she will be ensuring that the offices are in pristine order too. Sharon will be looking after Northern Trust who have availed of the training rooms today.



Other items of interest:



Barry is still on leave in Syria, no doubt having fun while squeezing in some networking!!



Scott will be chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on 7 September at the premises of Firmus. The HR Network is a loose affiliation of local HR professionals who come together every six weeks or so to discuss issues of mutual interest. The HR Network is open to anyone with HR responsibilities in the Antrim/Ballymena area. Guest speakers this time around are Harry Harpur from The Loop Training and Laura Kerr from Young Enterprise NI.

On Wednesday Scott will be networking in Dublin. He will be meeting with Eversheds sols; Hayes sols; Marian Jennings (chair of Dublin Annual Review of Employment Law conferences); Byrne Wallace sols; and John Horgan.

Then on Friday Scott will be taking time off, as he sees his eldest daughter fly the nest off to university in Scotland.



Heather will be going down to Dublin to view a few other venues in and around Dublin in the morning and afternoon. She will also meet with Scott and Marian for a well deserved lunch.



Jayne will continue working on the EFQM submission this week, taking Thursday off to focus on the paperwork and work from home.



Marketing continue to organise mailshots and set up event information on our websites. The only meeting this week for Ainsley, is on Wednesday morning when he meets with Brian and Alan Nelson of Forth Data to discuss an audit of our internal databases.



Finally, James will be returning to work tomorrow (we hope!!) after he completed a 10k run in Yorkshire yesterday.

31st August Guest Writer Jayne Finlay

So as second season nears upon us, we prepare to say goodbye to August, crazy sports days and river cleans and head into the busy month of September.

Last week we had a great week cleaning up rivers in Antrim, hosting a bbq for local businesses and competing against Abacus Recruitment for the coveted Sports Day trophy - ok so it wasn't exactly the "triathlon" Barry had in mind when he first set out with this idea but I think I can safely say fun was had by all as we substituted swimming for badminton, running for rounders and cycling for indoor hockey. Who won? Legal-Island of course! We feel a rematch coming on!!

As for the this week, with some staff members wisely using their annual leave before the silly season starts again we are preparing ourselves for what we hope will be a busy few weeks of bookings and conferences.

Barry is off to Syria on his holidays for 2 weeks leaving Jayne to mind the fort.

Jayne will be working hard on the submission for EFQM NI Quality Mark while marketing will be preparing mailshots for ROI.

We have our newest member of staff coming in to meet with Donna today. Sharon Simpson is our new Office Cleaner/ Housekeeper for the Training Centre and we look forward to welcoming her on board the Island.

Carecall are coming in to see us today to explain about the launch of EAP within Legal-Island. This is an exciting new project which gives all staff the opportunity to meet one to one with a coach/ counsellor to keep us calm and stress free during the coming months.

Let's hope we're all still standing at September kicks off....

Monday 23rd August 2010 Guest writer Phyllis

A warm welcome to Bronagh who has joined the staff of Legal-Island today. She will be working in the admin department helping to process bookings for our second season which starts tomorrow.

All work and no play - this is not the case at Legal-Island as we have the Antrim River Clean up and BBQ on Thursday and competitive games at the Forum on Friday. All welcome.

Kerry will be hosting Customer First Event which will be facilitated by Joe Blair MBS and we are happy to report that this event is all but sold out.

Heather will be going along to the Parity Steering Group tomorrow evening.

Scott will be helping out at our Customer First Workshop tomorrow. This is a new workshop from Legal-Island. He will also be assisting with the Legal-Island barbecue.

Vanessa will be attending our Customer First course.

Barry is meeting leadership consultant Richare O'Rawe on Wednesday and is taking part in the great Antrim River Clean up on Thursday. He assures us he'll look the part in his rubber diver's suit but we'll see. On Friday he's the captain of the Legal-Island triathlon sports team. Legal-Island is taking on Abacus Recruitment who think they're good but good may not be good enough!

We are all looking forward to a very diverse week at L-I.

Monday 16th August - Guest Writer Arnold

This is one of the last quiet weeks in Legal-Island before the busy second season of events begins. Everybody is excited for the Great Antrim River clean up and Barbecue that Legal-Island is hosting on Thursday 26^th of August. If anybody would like to join us please e-mail Vanessa at vanessa@legal-island.com by Friday 20^th August.

This week we have a Business in the Community coming in on Wednesday to chat with us about charity opportunities in the local community.

Networking:

Tomorrow Ainsley is going to meet Andy Hill from I Want More Design in the morning
and then Barry and Ainsley will be meeting Noel Brady from NB1 Consulting tomorrow
afternoon

Barry is busy this week getting ready for the hand over of Legal-Island to the new MD, Jayne, at the end of the month. He's also busy getting ready for his holidays. He's off to Syria & Lebanon with his nephew soon and this week they'll be busy getting visas ready to convince at least two governments that they would make worthy guests for a couple of weeks at least. Good luck Barry..

Monday 9th August - Guest Writer James

The summer sale has ended... much like the summer itself, but you can still get fantastic 'Early Bird' Discounts on Season 2 events.

The only event this month is the Customer Care & Service Programme on the 24th August
It's selling well with just 7 places left!

There's quite a few staff on holiday this week so things are a bit quiet on the Networking front.

Barry is hard at work with the marketing department; signing off brochures and calling on speakers for the rest of the this year and early next. He's in a very good mood at the moment. Anyone would think he's a holiday coming up.

I wonder if he's press-ganged all the required 'volunteers' for our triathlon match-up with Abacus Recruitment? Not wanting to miss out, I've signed up for the Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield... you can watch me getting carted off by the paramedics on Channel 5!

Until next time, Cheers!

Monday 2nd August - Guest Writer Julie

It's the start of a new month at Legal Island and one month closer to the start of the 2nd season of events. Most of us have had a well deserved holiday and others are still to take a break before it all kicks off again.

Our training suite has had no rest over the summer months and sees ' Schrader ' return once again today for a meeting.

NETWORKING:

Barry's busy as always this week, but firstly he's having an ornamental face mask done tomorrow. I have never tried one of those myself but lets hope it's an enjoyable and relaxing one!! He is visiting Training Solutions tomorrow regarding some new software for the company. On Thursday attending a lunch as a guest of Carson McDowell solicitors at Belfast City Hall. Barry is aiming to do a 1/2 mile swim every day this week in preparation for the companys mini triathalon at the end of this month. No bother at all to you Barry!

Ainsley is out and about attending meetings on the following days:

Tuesday - Brian Nelson at Forth Data

Thursday - Anne Monaghan at DCP PR

Friday - Susan McCambridge from Belfast MET

Scott is meeting Rebecca McCourt from PwC and Tom Evans and Alan Scott from DEL on Wednesday. Scott heads off on holidays this Friday the 6th of August for 2 weeks. Bon voyage Scott!

Best wishes to Peter on his presentation at Parity tomorrow morning.

Onwards!